Quantity and safety vs. quality and performance: conflicting interests during mass rearing and transport affect the efficiency of sterile insect technique programs

The sterile insect technique (SIT) requires production of large quantities of sterile males able to successfully compete with wild males for wild females. During eradication of a pest population, the release of fertile insects or capture of non‐marked released flies can have deleterious effects and trigger costly control measures. These perceived risks encourage program managers to apply high radiation doses and high doses of marking dye. In addition, mass rearing factories are strategically located away from release areas to prevent escape of fertile individuals within eradicated areas, raising the need for lengthy transport. Such is the case for Anastrepha obliqua Macquart (Diptera: Tephritidae) released in mango producing areas of Mexico under an SIT‐based eradication campaign. Here, we examined several standard quality‐control parameters for mass‐reared A. obliqua subjected to various time periods under hypoxia during transport, marked with different doses of fluorescent dye, and subjected to different radiation doses. Such factors were evaluated in isolation and in conjunction. Overall, long periods of hypoxia, high marking doses, and high radiation doses reduced the number of flying adults and increased the number of non‐emerged pupae. Some quality‐control parameters such as number of deformed adults, part‐emerged pupae, and non‐flying adults provided less informative guidance or redundant information of fly performance. Some tests such as mortality under stress and mating propensity in small cages were useless in detecting differences in quality among treatments for parameters evaluated during experiments. We discuss the quantity/safety‐quality/performance conflict during eradication using SIT, propose different strategies according to different stages during eradication (management, suppression, eradication, outbreaks in free areas), where males irradiated at low doses and marked with low doses of dye can be released during early suppression, and examine the pertinence of carrying out different quality‐control tests.